August 2009
As I sit here today, I have found that I am a broken man. One that’s body is worn out, mind is tired, and the spirit gone. I feel like the old mower that sits in my workshop that I have had for many years, that has always done its job, but today, it sits there broken and useless to me. That mower was the best in its time. Always started, always mowed level, and never gave me a bit of trouble. But as the years went on, I had to start repairing and working on it to keep it going. Now, it just sits, waiting for my next move.
People are a lot like that mower. We get to that point and try to figure out what the next best move is. We look at keeping it as it is, or investing money into to bring it back. But what if it is so broken, that no repair would bring it back to what it once was. What do we do then?
I have thought a lot about this and the similarities between myself and that mower. There are two ways to look at this scenario and which way to go. There is the way we do things, as humans, in this world and time. Then there is the way that God handles things, in His way and time.
Our humanistic thought is to eliminate what does not work. To discard it, stick it back somewhere out of the way, or give it away. We will buy a new one, that is bigger, better, faster and more efficient. And as we use the new one, we will soon forget the old one, and even forget that it once existed. We are loyal to what serves our purpose now and tend to forget about what got us where we are.
God looks at that old mower and doesn’t see what it is or what it was. He looks and it and sees what it could be. That mower was great in its day, but it no longer can mow like it did, but that doesn’t mean that it is useless. What if we were to take the working parts that were there, and combined them with new parts and created a new item? The motor could be used as the driving force behind a new item. The wheels and handles could also be used as the steering force. In this instance, the mower became what is now a small tiller. It does not cut the grass, but tills the ground for the grass to grow. It has gone from a grounds maintainer to a ground breaker.
In order for Him to fix us and our life, He must first break us down. Pull out the parts that are bad, replace them with good parts. In this process we may not come back to the world as we were, but as He wants us to be. We may not serve in the way we have, but in a new way that is more desirable to Him.
When we look around at our world, we must look at things as He does. We must think of what they could be, and not what they are or have been. When someone’s life is falling apart, and they are broken down from this world, don’t think of what they were, or are, but what they will be, when they emerge from being rebuilt by God. For the broken-hearted and broken-spirited, we must look to God to rebuild us in His glory, and follow His lead on wherever He takes us. It is not rebuke or punishment that brings us down to our knees, but His love for us and for what we could be for Him.
So when we enter that phase of our life, we must not look for worldly things to bring us back to what we once were. We must not expect to return to the glory we once thought we had. We must allow God to rebuild us into a new item in Him, that will serve His purpose and not ours. So, do not look back in life at what you were or are, but what you will be once He has finished rebuilding you.
As I sit here today, I have found that I am a broken man. One that’s body is worn out, mind is tired, and the spirit gone. I feel like the old mower that sits in my workshop that I have had for many years, that has always done its job, but today, it sits there broken and useless to me. That mower was the best in its time. Always started, always mowed level, and never gave me a bit of trouble. But as the years went on, I had to start repairing and working on it to keep it going. Now, it just sits, waiting for my next move.
People are a lot like that mower. We get to that point and try to figure out what the next best move is. We look at keeping it as it is, or investing money into to bring it back. But what if it is so broken, that no repair would bring it back to what it once was. What do we do then?
I have thought a lot about this and the similarities between myself and that mower. There are two ways to look at this scenario and which way to go. There is the way we do things, as humans, in this world and time. Then there is the way that God handles things, in His way and time.
Our humanistic thought is to eliminate what does not work. To discard it, stick it back somewhere out of the way, or give it away. We will buy a new one, that is bigger, better, faster and more efficient. And as we use the new one, we will soon forget the old one, and even forget that it once existed. We are loyal to what serves our purpose now and tend to forget about what got us where we are.
God looks at that old mower and doesn’t see what it is or what it was. He looks and it and sees what it could be. That mower was great in its day, but it no longer can mow like it did, but that doesn’t mean that it is useless. What if we were to take the working parts that were there, and combined them with new parts and created a new item? The motor could be used as the driving force behind a new item. The wheels and handles could also be used as the steering force. In this instance, the mower became what is now a small tiller. It does not cut the grass, but tills the ground for the grass to grow. It has gone from a grounds maintainer to a ground breaker.
In order for Him to fix us and our life, He must first break us down. Pull out the parts that are bad, replace them with good parts. In this process we may not come back to the world as we were, but as He wants us to be. We may not serve in the way we have, but in a new way that is more desirable to Him.
When we look around at our world, we must look at things as He does. We must think of what they could be, and not what they are or have been. When someone’s life is falling apart, and they are broken down from this world, don’t think of what they were, or are, but what they will be, when they emerge from being rebuilt by God. For the broken-hearted and broken-spirited, we must look to God to rebuild us in His glory, and follow His lead on wherever He takes us. It is not rebuke or punishment that brings us down to our knees, but His love for us and for what we could be for Him.
So when we enter that phase of our life, we must not look for worldly things to bring us back to what we once were. We must not expect to return to the glory we once thought we had. We must allow God to rebuild us into a new item in Him, that will serve His purpose and not ours. So, do not look back in life at what you were or are, but what you will be once He has finished rebuilding you.
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